Seismic reliability of continuously supported steel wine storage tanks retrofitted with energy dissipation devices

Abstract

Seismic protection of wine storage tanks has become a very important issue due to the booming of thewine industry in seismic countries such as the US, Italy, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina. In order toimprove the seismic reliabilities of structures, external energy dissipation may be used beneficially. Inthis study, the reliabilities of two continuously supported cylindrical steel tanks (one slender and onebroad), used for fermentation and wine storage, with and without an external energy dissipation systemare calculated by using simulation. A group of non-linear time history analyses is established in order toassess the influence of the energy dissipation system. Each non-linear time history is obtained by meansof a mathematical model that considers the fluid–structure–soil interaction. A set of different seismicground motions is used for the purpose of obtaining robust results in the reliability analysis. Finally,the seismic reliability analysis shows that, for steel wine storage tanks, an external energy dissipationsystem would reduce the limit state probability in the order of 80%.